| Botswana at a Glance |
Location: Botswana is a land-locked country situated in southern Africa. It borders South Africa, Namibia, Zambia and Zimbabwe. Approximately two-thirds of the country lies within the Tropics.
Countr y Size: Botswana covers an area of 581 730 square kilometres – about the size of France or Kenya.
Topography: Most of the country is flat, with some small hills in the eastern areas. Kalahari sands cover 84 percent of the surface area. With the exception of the northern areas, most of Botswana is without perennial surface water.
Capital: Gaborone
Urban Centres: Francistown, Lobatse, Selebi-Phikwe
Tourism Centres: Maun, Kasane
Independence day: 30 September 1966
Government: Multi-party democracy
Head of State: His Excellency Lt. Gen. Seretse Khama Ian Khama
Population: 1.85 million, with an average annual growth rate of 2.4 % (2006 statistics)
National Language: Setswana
Official Language: English
Currency: Pula
Main Exports: Diamonds, copper nickel, beef, soda ash, tourism
Major Crops: Maize, sorghum, millet |
Welcome to Botswana
Botswana is well known for having some of the best wilderness and wildlife areas on the African continent. With a full 38 percent of its total land area devoted to national parks, reserves and wildlife management areas – for the most part unfenced, allowing animals to roam
wild and free – travel through many
parts of the country has the feeling of
moving through an immense Nature
wonderland.
Botswana is a rarity in our overpopulated,
over-developed world. Untamed and untameable, it is one
of the last great refuges for Nature’s
magnificent pageantry of life.
Experience here the stunning
beauty of the world’s largest intact
inland Delta – the Okavango; the
unimaginable vastness of the world’s second largest game reserve – the Central Kalahari Game Reserve; the isolation and other-worldliness of the Makgadikgadi – uninhabited pans the size of Portugal; and the astoundingly prolific wildlife of the Chobe National Park.
Botswana is the last stronghold for a number of endangered bird and mammal species, including Wild Dog, Cheetah, Brown Hyena, Cape
Vulture, Wattled Crane, Kori Bustard,
and Pel’s Fishing Owl. This makes
your safari experience even more memorable, and at times you will feel
simply surrounded by wild animals.
The first – and most lasting impressions – will be of vast expanses
of uninhabited wilderness stretching
from horizon to horizon, the sensation of limitless space, astoundingly rich wildlife and bird viewing, night skies littered with stars and heavenly bodies of an unimaginable brilliance, and stunning sunsets of unearthly beauty.
As well, with more and more cultural tourism options on offer, you will be charmed by the people of Botswana, visiting their villages and experiencing first-hand their rich cultural heritage. But perhaps most of all, Botswana’s greatest gift is its ability to put us in touch with our natural selves. It offers that vital link so keenly felt by inhabitants of the developed world, a pervasive void we feel but often
cannot name – our connectedness with Nature and the astonishing diversity of plants and animals to be explored.
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